Everything I Know About Love I Learned From Romance Novels - Plot & Excerpts
Why else would you want to read about the same few people for three hundred pages if there wasn’t drama to be had, savored, experienced, and solved? An entire romance where Nothing Happens would be dull indeed. The awesome thing about romance conflict is that it can be so completely ridiculous. Really. There can be some absolutely crazypants reasons for bringing the hero and heroine together. It’s no accident that most romance novels don’t often feature a “singles scene,” either. Most of the time, the couple in a romance find themselves together whether they like it or not, mostly due to conflict, drama, and massive wtf-ery. Consider the ways in which romance novel characters meet, and the problems that are created: In a bar when the heroine’s ex-boyfriend bets that the smoothest guy he knows won’t be able to get her phone number (Jennifer Crusie, Bet Me) At a formal ball in front of everyone they know, with not only their mothers but their grandmothers, great aunts, and assorted siblings in attendance (any number of historical romances) In an antiques shop where he tries to offend her with an obscenely decorated timepiece, and she not only buys the watch but the figure he was after as well (Loretta Chase, Lord of Scoundrels) At work, sort of, where she’s the state’s attorney working on a case and he’s the police officer in charge, and they reconnect when she overhears a murder and he’s assigned to the case (Julie James, Something About You) At her family home when he’s sent to marry her, sight unseen, because of a contract his father made, and she’s so appalled she dresses up so she’s 200 percent more fug-ugly, just to repel him (Catherine Coulter, Midsummer Magic) Next to her trailer after he’s directed to protect her (Patricia Briggs, Moon Called) In a cold, abandoned castle where he’s been hiding, and she’s been sent to kill him (Kresley Cole, A Hunger Like No Other) On a highway when she’s dressed as a giant beaver (Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Natural Born Charmer) In a parlor when she shoots him with his own gun (Georgette Heyer, Devil’s Cub) Under a tree when he falls drunkenly off a high branch onto her lap (Julia Quinn, Brighter Than the Sun) In a side parlor at a ball after she punched out some grabby-handed bonehead (Julia Quinn, The Duke and I) In a mountain cabin, unnerved but trying to be brave when a man shows up like an angry bear and wants to know what she’s doing sleeping in his bed (Jill Shalvis, Instant Attraction) See?
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